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This might be bad for Xfinity. A lot of their customers may leave them for a variety of readily available competitors created by the dynamic free market economy
by robotburrito 3y ago
This might be bad for Xfinity. A lot of their customers may leave them for a variety of readily available competitors created by the dynamic free market economy.
- dmitrygr 3y agoYou might want to post an explanation for non-Americans about why this is hilarious!
- boredtofears 3y agoRegional ISP markets are usually a monopoly or duopoly. If you're on comcast, its unlikely there is another high speed option out there for you (or if there is, the option is no better than comcast).
- doubled112 3y agoCanada too. Almost every independent ISP is just a reseller anyway.
- phkahler 3y agoStarlink is everywhere Comcast is. It's not the highest speed, but it apparently pretty good.
- jcrawfordor 3y agoA lot of Comcast customers in this audience are going to be on 500Mbps or Gbps plans. Starlink just can't meaningfully compete with these speeds. Most people in US cities will have two options, cable and either bonded VDSL2 or fiber from the telco. Both will be faster and usually cheaper than Starlink. The main competitor in most cases, after the cable company and the telephone company, is LTE. Also faster and cheaper than Starlink in a suburban area, but in dense areas the speeds really suffer. I was on LTE home internet for a good while and enjoyed 100+ Mbps at night but only 20 during the day, due to living too close to downtown. Only $45/mo though!
- simfree 3y agoComcast/Xfinity is pushing Docsis 3.1 mid-split upgrades out with plans up to 2Gbps download and 200Mbps upload. Competing with this using satellite or 5G Cellular is going to be difficult, both need more spectrum and an order of magnitude more hardware (cell towers or satellites) to reach those kinds of speeds.
- smcin 3y ago..."in the US". That's a political issue, not a technological issue. And if you want to inquire about the root-cause: "Comcast does so much lobbying that it says disclosing it all is too hard" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/comcast-does-so-much-lobbying-that-it-says-disclosing-it-all-is-too-hard/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/comcast-does-so-...
- two_in_one 3y agoThat was a joke: "Verizon made even Comcast look good". Not sure if it's still around.
- chopete3 3y agoI think it is something to do with cabling deals Comcast did with local governments. Once Comcast lays the cables, 1- Nobody else gets permits to lay cables in that area. Governments can't even share the data about cable locations/network detail. You can ask, as a property owner if it is around a specific location and they will say yes or no. 2-The agreements also prohibit local governments from laying out public cables, like roads. 3-Xfinity won't share that network with anybody else. Customers are stuck whatever Comcast deoes. These breaches have no meanining other than getting a check for $5-100 when they settle the lawsuit claims.
- jmclnx 3y agoSo true, but you may be living in a fantasy world if you think anyone will get anything from Comcast :) Just about anyone in the US knows what this means, you Comcast Bill will go up at least 10% as soon as the Fed Gov stop watching them for this breach.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bozhark 3y agoSounds like piss-poor municipalities
- Arrath 3y agoIt can often be out of the municipalities hands. Cable companies are big enough to lobby at the state level, bypassing whatever the cities might try to do at a local scale.
- iJohnDoe 3y agoThat’s crazy sad. Makes opportunities for 5G and other wireless providers to get some customers. It would be even better if this encouraged the wireless providers to provide better service.
- xyst 3y agoI think this was a South Park episode
- yterdy 3y agoBoondocks. Huey's speech on the origins of American corporate/"customer" dynamics in the Triangle Trade and exploitation of slaves and coal miners should have gotten them another Peabody.
- oooyay 3y agoI left the Comcast/Xfinity empire for the CenturyLink/Quantum empire about a month ago. There are other choices in my area too, but none that were fiber.
- kstrauser 3y agoAhh, CenturyLink, your connection to the 1890s.
- oooyay 3y agoThey're not too bad. I got gig symmetrical with no caps. I think Quantum is their, "Okay we're going to try" brand. fwiw, when I was a Network Engineer Century Link was the gold standard to work with in terms of backbones.
- simfree 3y agoThe Lumen fiber support desk is quite easy to work with, if your Fiber+ or EIA/DIA circuit goes down they will generally answer the phone in 3 to 5 minutes, determine if it's on their side in another 5 minutes, and if so dispatch someone to fix it within a few hours.
- oooyay 3y agoAgreed. Their hardware is actually pretty decent too. They gave me a set of 4 Wifi 6 APs that were strong enough to cover my entire property.
- daedalus_j 3y agoYes, we refer to them as "LastCenturyLink". The only Telcom ever to have literally told me "you're just lucky you have a dial tone".
- Spivak 3y agoYou can just say 1990's, that's about to be 34 years ago. If you're one of those people stuck in perpetual 00's time how you think of the 70's is how the 90's are now.
- kryogen1c 3y agoI know you're being sarcastic and that's fine, but the target of your sarcasm is incorrect. ISPs are very far from a "dynamic free market economy". Complex problems don't lend themselves to pithy internet commentary though.
- apapapa 3y agoLoL
- leotravis10 3y agoComcast is a total regional monopoly in most cities so I'm glad that cities that do invest in municipal/community broadband are taking matters into their own hands to combat this.
- mixdup 3y agoI don't think many cities that have Comcast as a provider are building municipal networks. Most of them are in places that have NO options
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- brewtide 3y agoFirst the mortgage provider, and now the only option around for 'net. We need to come up with a new plan for human authentication, that isn't straight from a dystopian landscape.
- jxy 3y agoSarcasm or irony. Leaving Xfinity for what? In my part of town the only other cable choice is NULL. AT&T used to provide ADSL, and now even that has gone.
- AHatLikeThat 3y agoIs this sarcasm? [https://ilsr.org/report-most-americans-have-no-real-choice-in-internet-providers/ https://ilsr.org/report-most-americans-have-no-real-choice-i...]
- emeril 3y agoyes 100% sarcasm
- username135 3y agoYou almost had me